Book V.—General Reply
to Sundry of Marcion’s Heresies.16251625 I make no apology for
the ruggedness of the versification and the obscurity of the sense in
this book, further than to say that the state of the Latin text is such
as to render it almost impossible to find any sense at all in many
places, while the grammar and metre are not reducible to any known
laws. It is about the hardest and most uninteresting book of the
five.

O Christ, in number twice six out of all,16271627 i.e., all the number
of Thy disciples.

Chosest; and, with their names, the
lustral16281628 Tempora lustri, i.e.,
apparently the times during which these “elders” (i.e., the
bishops, of whom a list is given at the end of book iii.) held
office. “Lustrum” is used of other periods than it
strictly implies, and this seems to give some sense to this difficult
passage. times

Or (since at that time16411641 i.e., apparently on
the day of Christ’s resurrection.
none of all these things

Is shown to have been done) he should have set

75 A bound to future race; with solid heart

Nuptial embraces would he, in that case

Have sated quite;16421642
Replesset, i.e., replevisset. If this be the
right reading, the meaning would seem to be, “would have taken
away all further desire for” them, as satiety or repletion
takes away all appetite for food. One is almost inclined to
hazard the suggestion “represset,”
i.e., repressisset, “he would have repressed,” but
that such a contraction would be irregular. Yet, with an author
who takes such liberties as the present one, perhaps that might not be
a decisive objection.
made men grow torpid, reft

Of fruitful seed; made irksome intercourse

With female sex; and closed up inwardly

80 The flesh’s organs genital: our
mind

Had had no will, no potent faculty

Our body: after this the “inner
man”

Could withal, joined with blood,16431643
“Junctus,” for the edd.’s
“junctis,” which, if retained, will
mean “in the case of beings still joined with (or to)
blood.” have been infused

And cleaved to flesh, and would have ever been

85 Perishing. Ever perishes the
“ewe:”

And is there then no power of saving her?

Since man is ever being born beneath

Death’s doom, what is the Shepherd’s work,
if thus

The “ewe” is stated16441644
“Docetur,” for the edd.’s
“docentur.” The sense seems to
be, if there be any, exceedingly obscure; but for the idea of a
half-salvation—the salvation of the “inner man”
without the outer—being no salvation at all, and unworthy of
“the Good Shepherd” and His work, we may compare the very
difficult passage in the de Pudic., c. xiii. ad fin. to be found?
Unsought

90 In that case, but not rescued, she
is proved.

But now choice is allowed of entering

Wedlock, as hath been ever; and that choice

Sure progeny hath yoked: nations are born

And folk scarce numerable, at whose birth

95 Their souls by living bodies are received;

Nor was it meet that Paul (though, for the time,

He did exhort some few, discerning well

The many pressures of a straitened time)

To counsel men in like case to abide

100 As he himself:16451645 This sense,
which I deduce from a transposition of one line and the supplying of
the words “he did exhort,” which are not expressed,
but seem necessary, in the original, agrees well with
1 Cor. vii., which is plainly the passage referred
to. for elsewhere he has bidden

The tender ages marry, nor defraud

Each other, but their compact’s dues
discharge.

But say, whose suasion hath, with fraud astute,

Made you “abide,” and in divided love

105 Of offspring live secure, and commit crime

Adulterous, and lose your life? and, though

’Tis perishing, belie (by verbal name)

That fact. For which cause all the so sweet
sounds

Of his voice pours he forth, that “you must
do,

110 Undaunted, whatsoever pleases you;”

Outwardly chaste, stealthily stained with crime!

Of honourable wedlock, by this plea,16461646
“Causa;” or perhaps “means.”
It is, of course, the French “chose.”

He hath deprived you. But why more?
’Tis well

(Forsooth) to be disjoined! for the world, too,

115 Expedient ’tis! lest any of
your seed

Be born! Then will death’s
organs16471647 i.e., you and your
like, through whom sin, and in consequence death, is disseminated. cease at
length!

The while you hope salvation to retain,

Your “total man” quite loses part of
man,

With mind profane: but neither is man said

120 To be sole spirit, nor the
flesh is called

“The old man;” nor unfriendly are the
flesh

And spirit, the true man combined in
one,

The inner, and he whom you call
“old foe;”16481648 Here, again, for the
sake of the sense, I have transposed a line.

Expected long, they16571657 i.e., “the gifts
of baptism.”
came: but that to those

Who recognised them when erst heard, and now

Have recognised them, when in due time found,

Christ’s true hand is to give them, this, with
voice

170 Paternal, the Creator-Sire Himself

Warns ever from eternity, and claims;

And thus the work of virtue which He framed,

And still frames, arms, and fosters, and doth now

Victorious look down on and reclothe

175 With His own light, should with perennial
praise

Abide.16581658 This seems to give
sense to a very obscure passage, in which I have been guided more by
Migne’s pointing than by Oehler’s.

What16591659 I read here
“quid” for
“quod.” hath the Living
Power done

To make men recognise what God can give

And man can suffer, and thus live?16601660 i.e., to make
men live by recognising that. Comp. the Psalmist’s
prayer: “Give me understanding and I shall
live” (Ps.
cxix. 144; in LXX., Ps.
cxviii. 144). But since

Neither predictions earlier nor facts

180 The latest can suede senseless
frantic16611661 The
“furentes” of Pam. and Rig. is
preferred to Oehler’s
“ferentes.” men

That God became a man, and (after He

Had suffered and been buried) rose; that they

May credit those so many witnesses

Harmonious,16621662
“Complexis,” lit. “embracing.” who of old did
cry aloud

185 With heavenly word, let them
both16631663 i.e., both Jews and
Gentile heretics, the “senseless frantic men” just referred
to probably: or possibly the “ambo” may mean
“both sects,” viz., the Marcionites and Manichees,
against whom the writer whom Oehler supposes to be the probable author
of these “Five Books,” Victorinus, a rhetorician of
Marseilles, directed his efforts. But it may again be the acc.
neut. pl., and mean “let them”—i.e., the
“senseless frantic men”—“learn to believe as
to both facts,” i.e., the incarnation and the resurrection;
(see vers. 179, 180;) “the testimony at least of human
reason.” learn to trust

At least terrestrial reason.

When the Lord

Christ came to be, as flesh, born into the orb

In time of king Augustus’ reign at Rome,

First, by decree, the nations numbered are

190 By census everywhere: this measure,
then,

This same king chanced to pass, because the

Will

Supreme, in whose high reigning hand doth lie

The king’s heart, had impelled him:16641664 I would suggest here, for “…quia summa voluntas In cujus manu regnantis cor legibus
esset,” something like this, “…quia summa voluntas, In cujus manu regnantis cor
regis, egisset,” which would only add one more to our
author’s false quantities. “Regum egisset”
would avoid even that, while it would give some sense. Comp.
Prov. xxi. 1. he was first

To do it, and the enrolment was reduced

195 To orderly arrangement. Joseph then

Likewise, with his but just delivered wife

Mary,16651665 Maria cum conjuge
feta. What follows seems to decide the meaning of
“feta,” as a child could hardly be included in a census
before birth. with her celestial
Son alike,

Themselves withal are numbered. Let, then,
such

As trust to instruments of human skill,

200 Who may (approving of applying them

As attestators of the holy word)

Inquire into this census, if it be

But found so as we say, then afterwards

Repent they and seek pardon while time still

205 Is had16661666 Again I have had to
attempt to amend the text of the Latin in order to extract any sense,
and am far from sure that I have extracted the right one.

164The Jews, who
own16671667
“Fatentur,” unless our author use it passively ="are
confessed.” to having wrought

They hanged a man, who spake truth, on a
tree:16691669 Because Christ
plainly, as they understood Him, “made Himself the Son of
God;” and hence, if they confessed that He had said the truth,
and yet that they hanged Him on a tree, they would be pronouncing their
own condemnation.

210 Ignorant that the Lord’s flesh
which they bound16701670
“Vinctam” for “victam” I
read here.

Was not seed-gendered. But, while partially

They keep a reticence, so partially

They triumph; for they strive to represent

God to the peoples commonly as man.

215 Behold the error which o’ercomes
you both!16711671 i.e., you and the
Jews. See above on 185.

This error will our cause assist, the while,

We prove to you those things which certain are.

They do deny Him God; you falsely call

Him man, a body bodiless! and ah!

220 A various insanity of mind

Sinks you; which him who hath presumed to hint

You both do, sinking, sprinkle:16721672 Quod qui
præsumpsit mergentes spargitis ambo. What the meaning
is I know not, unless it be this: if any one hints to you that
you are in an error which is sinking you into perdition, you both join
in trying to sink him (if “mergentes” be
active; or “while you are sinking,” if neuter), and in
sprinkling him with your doctrine (or besprinkling him with abuse). for His deeds

Is fixed; wine drugged with myrrh,16761676
“Scriblita,” a curious word. is drunk, and gall16771677 Fel miscetur
aceto. The reading may have arisen—and it is
not confined to our author—from confounding ὄξος with οἶνος. Comp. Matt. xxvii. 33 with Mark xv. 23.

Is mixt with vinegar; parted His robe,16781678 This is an error, if
the “coat” be meant.

And in it16791679 Perhaps for
“in illa” we should read
“in illam”—“on it,”
for “in it.” lots are cast; what
for himself

An Image,16851685 I read with Migne,
“Patris sub imagine virtus,” in preference to the
conjecture which Oehler follows, “Christi sub imagine
virtus.” The reference seems clearly to be to Heb. i. 3. with the Father
ever was,

270 United both in glory and in
age;16861686 Ævo.
Perhaps here ="eternity.”

290 Of His high biddings; sent down bread in
showers16911691 For
“dimisit in umbris” I read here
“demisit in imbris.” If we
retain the former reading, it will then mean, “dispersed during
the shades of night,” during which it was that the manna seems
always to have fallen.

From heaven for the People; brake the rock;

Bedewed with wave the thirsty;16921692
“Sitientis” in Oehler must be a
misprint for “sitientes.” and from God

The mandate of the Law to Moses spake

With thunder, trumpet-sound, and flamey column

295 Terrible to the sight, while men’s
hearts shook.

After twice twenty years, with months complete,

Jordan was parted; a way oped; the wave

Stood in a mass; and the tribes shared the land,

Their fathers’ promised boons! The
Father’s word,

300 Speaking Himself by prophets’
mouth, that He16931693 There ought to be a
“se” in the Latin if this be the meaning.

Would come to earth and be a man, He did

Predict; Christ manifestly to the earth

Foretelling.

Then, expected for our aid,

Life’s only Hope, the Cleanser of our
flesh,16941694 For
“Mundator carnis seræ” ="the
Cleanser of late flesh” (which would seem, if it mean
anything, to mean that the flesh had to wait long for its cleansing), I
have read “carnis
nostræ.”

And the “tree’s”
remedy;16961696 I have followed the
disjointed style of the Latin as closely as I could here. whence vanquisht
man

And doomed to perish was aye wont to go

To meet his vanquisht peers; hence, interposed,

315 One in all
captives’ room, He did sustain

In body the unfriendly penalty

With patience; by His own death spoiling death;

Becomes salvation’s cause; and, having paid

Throughly our debts by throughly suffering

320 On earth, in holy body, everything,

Seeks the infern! here souls, bound for their crime,

Which shut up all together by Law’s weight,

Without a guard,16971697 Here we seem to see
the idea of the “limbus patrum.”
were asking for the boons

Promised of old, hoped for, and tardy, He

325 To the saints’rest admitted, and, with
light,

Brought back. For on the third day mounting
up,16981698
“Subiens” ="going beneath,” i.e., apparently
coming beneath the walls of heaven.

A victor, with His body by His Sire’s

Virtue immense, (salvation’s pathway made,)

And bearing God and man is form create,

330 He clomb the heavens, leading back with
Him

Captivity’s first-fruits (a welcome gift

And a dear figure16991699 i.e., a figure of the
future harvest. to
the Lord), and took

His seat beside light’s Father, and resumed

The virtue and the glory of which, while

335 He was engaged in vanquishing the foe

He had been stripped;17001700 I have hazarded the
conjecture “minutus” here for the
edd.’s “munitus.” It adds
one more, it is true, to our author’s false quantities, but that
is a minor difficulty, while it improves (to my mind) the sense
vastly.
conjoined with Spirit; bound

With flesh, on our part. Him, Lord, Christ, King,
God,

Judgment and kingdom given to His hand,

The father is to send unto the orb.

————————————

1625 I make no apology for
the ruggedness of the versification and the obscurity of the sense in
this book, further than to say that the state of the Latin text is such
as to render it almost impossible to find any sense at all in many
places, while the grammar and metre are not reducible to any known
laws. It is about the hardest and most uninteresting book of the
five.

1628 Tempora lustri, i.e.,
apparently the times during which these “elders” (i.e., the
bishops, of whom a list is given at the end of book iii.) held
office. “Lustrum” is used of other periods than it
strictly implies, and this seems to give some sense to this difficult
passage.

1642
Replesset, i.e., replevisset. If this be the
right reading, the meaning would seem to be, “would have taken
away all further desire for” them, as satiety or repletion
takes away all appetite for food. One is almost inclined to
hazard the suggestion “represset,”
i.e., repressisset, “he would have repressed,” but
that such a contraction would be irregular. Yet, with an author
who takes such liberties as the present one, perhaps that might not be
a decisive objection.

1643
“Junctus,” for the edd.’s
“junctis,” which, if retained, will
mean “in the case of beings still joined with (or to)
blood.”

1644
“Docetur,” for the edd.’s
“docentur.” The sense seems to
be, if there be any, exceedingly obscure; but for the idea of a
half-salvation—the salvation of the “inner man”
without the outer—being no salvation at all, and unworthy of
“the Good Shepherd” and His work, we may compare the very
difficult passage in the de Pudic., c. xiii. ad fin.

1645 This sense,
which I deduce from a transposition of one line and the supplying of
the words “he did exhort,” which are not expressed,
but seem necessary, in the original, agrees well with
1 Cor. vii., which is plainly the passage referred
to.

1646
“Causa;” or perhaps “means.”
It is, of course, the French “chose.”

1647 i.e., you and your
like, through whom sin, and in consequence death, is disseminated.

1648 Here, again, for the
sake of the sense, I have transposed a line.

1663 i.e., both Jews and
Gentile heretics, the “senseless frantic men” just referred
to probably: or possibly the “ambo” may mean
“both sects,” viz., the Marcionites and Manichees,
against whom the writer whom Oehler supposes to be the probable author
of these “Five Books,” Victorinus, a rhetorician of
Marseilles, directed his efforts. But it may again be the acc.
neut. pl., and mean “let them”—i.e., the
“senseless frantic men”—“learn to believe as
to both facts,” i.e., the incarnation and the resurrection;
(see vers. 179, 180;) “the testimony at least of human
reason.”

1664 I would suggest here, for “…quia summa voluntas In cujus manu regnantis cor legibus
esset,” something like this, “…quia summa voluntas, In cujus manu regnantis cor
regis, egisset,” which would only add one more to our
author’s false quantities. “Regum egisset”
would avoid even that, while it would give some sense. Comp.
Prov. xxi. 1.

1665 Maria cum conjuge
feta. What follows seems to decide the meaning of
“feta,” as a child could hardly be included in a census
before birth.

1666 Again I have had to
attempt to amend the text of the Latin in order to extract any sense,
and am far from sure that I have extracted the right one.

1669 Because Christ
plainly, as they understood Him, “made Himself the Son of
God;” and hence, if they confessed that He had said the truth,
and yet that they hanged Him on a tree, they would be pronouncing their
own condemnation.

1672 Quod qui
præsumpsit mergentes spargitis ambo. What the meaning
is I know not, unless it be this: if any one hints to you that
you are in an error which is sinking you into perdition, you both join
in trying to sink him (if “mergentes” be
active; or “while you are sinking,” if neuter), and in
sprinkling him with your doctrine (or besprinkling him with abuse).

1691 For
“dimisit in umbris” I read here
“demisit in imbris.” If we
retain the former reading, it will then mean, “dispersed during
the shades of night,” during which it was that the manna seems
always to have fallen.

1700 I have hazarded the
conjecture “minutus” here for the
edd.’s “munitus.” It adds
one more, it is true, to our author’s false quantities, but that
is a minor difficulty, while it improves (to my mind) the sense
vastly.